News about news
- Data crunched by the Local News Research Project shows more than 250 media outlets, mainly community newspapers, closing in the past 10 years. And the 93 new outlets created haven’t been enough to compensate.
- Community newspapers are now eligible for the National Newspaper Awards, but only if they publish original content online at least five days a week. The organization has also amended its photo essay category so portfolios are no longer accepted as entries.
- A Quebecor-owned publishing house is suing La Presse for altering an image of a book cover to remove its logo in a story. It’s unclear to me how the image was altered and why (was it digitally altered, covered up, or merely cropped out?), but La Presse apparently issued a clarification that didn’t satisfy the company.
- The Toronto Star is doing an ask-me-anything on Reddit’s r/Journalism channel about building trust.
- Journalist murders of the week: Viktoria Marinova in Bulgaria and Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Turkey.
At the CRTC
- An application by a group of major media companies and unions to get the CRTC to allow blocking of websites engaging in rampant piracy has been denied because the commission does not believe it has the jurisdiction under the Telecommunications Act to do so. The full decision is here.
- The commission’s wholesale code, that sets rules for distribution contracts between TV broadcasters and distributors, has been struck down by a 2-1 decision by the federal court for being an overreach of CRTC jurisdiction. Or maybe it wasn’t struck down, but merely ruled invalid in the way it’s been implemented? The full decision is here.
- The commission has determined that the first wireless emergency alert test during Emergency Preparedness Week “did not achieve full success.” Another test is planned for November and the CRTC wants wireless service providers to warn their customers ahead of time.
- New applications for radio stations in Afton Station, N.S. (low-power Native), Listowel, Ont. (English commercial), and Carlsbad Springs and Vars, Ont. (low-power bilingual community, converting an existing tourist info station).
- Radio Humsafar has been denied technical changes to an unlaunched ethnic station in Brampton that would have effectively turned it into a Mississauga station.
- Christian radio station CIAM-FM has been approved for low-power retransmitters in Telegraph Creek, B.C., and Corman Park, Sask.
- CFET-FM in Tagish, Yukon, has been approved for low-power retransmitters in Atlin, B.C., Carcross, Yukon, and Inuvik, N.W.T.
Ethical reviews
- A CBC News story in Halifax about a funeral home mixup did not violate journalistic policy despite a complaint by Frank magazine (the Halifax one, not the Ottawa one) that it had the story first. The ombudsman’s report notes that CBC did not claim an exclusive, that producers were unaware of the Frank story, and that they were aware of it before the Frank publication. But the use of the term “uncover” may have not been the best choice after the Frank story was published.
- A CBC story exposing the mental health problems of the Toronto Danforth shooter did not violate journalistic policy.
TV
- Knowledge Network has announced it will shut down BBC Kids Canada on Dec. 31.
- Unionized workers at TVA have voted 90.2% in favour of a new labour contract. The five-year deal expires Dec. 31, 2021, includes salary increases based on inflation (minimum of 1%, maximum 3% per year). TVA will also create 25 new permanent jobs.
- Rogers is trying its Ice Surfing program again, making it weekly after a pilot attempt last season. The broadcast on Twitter will follow live NHL games and also include commentary and interaction with viewers. It’s looking for sponsors.
- Big Brother Canada is doing a nationwide casting tour, stopping in Montreal Oct. 20.
- Canada’s Worst Driver returns for a 14th season on Discovery Channel on Oct. 29.
- The Canadiens-Leafs game Wednesday on Sportsnet had an average overnight audience of 1.73 million, the best season opener since 2014.
- Bill Brownstein talks to the writer behind Bad Blood, the Montreal Mafia drama that begins its second season next week on Citytv.
- Bell Media has begun production of Mary’s Kitchen Crush, a half-hour, 30-episode food series starring Masterchef Canada winner Mary Berg. It will air on CTV and Gusto.
- AMI is the latest company to try radio on TV. AMI audio’s Live from Studio 5 is joining AMI TV‘s morning schedule in a video form. AMI talks to the hosts and gives an idea of what the TV version will look like.
- Amazon Prime Video is now available on Roku devices in Canada.
Radio
- Time Out is launching an arts and restaurant publication in Montreal, joining a worldwide network of such publications.
- To mark the centennial of the First World War, Maclean’s has printed 66,349 special covers, each one with the name of a different soldier who died during the conflict.
- Le Devoir has signed new contracts to outsource digital ad sales to M32 Media (programmatic ads) and Groupe Capitales Médias (national ads). It also has a new sales manager, Richard Ngyuen.
- TC Media has acquired Somabec, a pan-Canadian distributor of French-language books, and publishing house Edisem.
- The New York Times explains why it only started printing in colour in the 1990s.
News about people
It's official: our excellent colleague @REBCBC_RC is leaving us – headed to Happy Valley-Goose Bay to produce @CBCLabrador. BON VOYAGE! And @Shawn_Lyons_ is back in the band – taking over the news shift for the wonderful @ajmontgomery who's on leave for the next few months.
— Susan Campbell (@Snooze1031) October 5, 2018
- Janice Goudie is the new host of Labrador Morning on CBC Radio. The show has also hired Rebecca Martel from Quebec as producer and Alyson Samson from St. John’s as reporter. The previous team of Matt McCann and Bailey White have taken new jobs in St. John’s. Meanwhile, Shawn Lyons is going back to Quebec City, filling in for Angelica Montgomery while she’s on leave.
- Edmonton Journal columnist Paula Simons has been appointed to the Canadian Senate.
- Scott Moore is leaving his job as president of Sportsnet and head of its NHL properties at the end of October. He tells the Globe and Mail he considers the job done there and is looking for another project.
- The Toronto Star has hired Fredric Karen of Sweden as senior vice-president of editorial, tasked with building the Star’s digital presence and maximizing digital subscriptions for the Star and other Torstar publications.
- Stephanie Nolen is leaving Brazil as the Globe and Mail moves its Latin American bureau to Mexico. She writes a long goodbye to the country she has been reporting from through a World Cup, an Olympics and a lot of political upheaval.
- Martin-Luc Archambault has been dropped from the Quebec version of Dragon’s Den after a La Presse report that his software company Wajam was scamming users into installing secret spyware on their computers.
- Sean Gordon, until recently the Globe and Mail’s sports journalist in Montreal, has decided to leave the Globe to “try something new.”
- Montreal Gazette Canadiens beat writer Pat Hickey has a new book out with tales from the dressing room and press box covering the team.
- Global Montreal Morning News anchor Laura Casella is pregnant with a second child.
- Mathias Brunet is starting a weekly minor hockey column for La Presse.
- Journal de Montréal journalist Laurence Houde-Roy has become the new press attaché to the city of Montreal executive committee.
- Ishmael Daro is leaving BuzzFeed News in Toronto to move to New York and freelance.
- Caroline Cameron is moving from the Sportsnet Central anchor desk to Hockey Central Tonight, where she’ll be seen during Canucks, Oilers and Flames regional games.
- Dan Robson is leaving his job as a senior writer for Sportsnet.
- BCE has promoted Mirko Bibic to chief operating officer. Bibic, who has been Bell’s leader on regulatory and corporate affairs, including the acquisition of Astral Media, is likely being groomed to succeed CEO George Cope, the Globe and Mail says.
- Telus executive vice-president Dave Fuller is leaving the company in January. Telus has appointed Zainul Mawji and Jim Senko as President, home solutions and small business and President, mobility solutions, respectively.
Obituaries
Jobs
- CBC/QWF writer in residence (deadline: Oct. 15)
- Producer, weekend assignment, CBC Edmonton (deadline: Oct. 25)
- Summer interns, Globe and Mail (deadline: Oct. 26)
- Summer interns, Montreal Gazette (deadline: Nov. 2)
- Assistant Professor in Solutions Journalism for Health Improvement at Concordia University in Montreal (deadline: Nov. 15)
- Video journalist, CityNews Montreal
- Sports writer, McGill University Athletics
The local news research project story is almost laughable. While they try to avoid going there, they make assumptions that are categorically false.
First off: While 93 doesn’t “replace” 250 or so closed outlets, there is no real good number of media outlets. Were the 250 too many? Is 93 new ones not enough? How do you measure that?
Closing community papers sounds bad (on paper at least), the reality is most of these papers had shriveled over the last 20 years to be providing little in the way of community journalism anyway. In many cases, papers that closed were “one of two” or “one of three” in markets that cannot barely support one.
Also, while they note only 42 new online news sources, that denies the reality of the internet. Your own site here is a source of community news. It’s not a community in the sense of a row of houses or a district, but rather a group of people interested in similar topics and items. There are many, many sites such as your own around the world that provide true community news on a level that this project group would never accept as real.
I think the story boils down to “we are journalists and we think we need more” and they wrote a story to support that point of view. A more thoughtful review of what closed and why might be a whole lot more informative.
Waiting for Quebecor to relaunch ICI to undercut Time Out.